


Fine, You and Me

by Ranowa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Recovery, Sickfic, Werewolf Bill Weasley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21737779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: The whole world's falling apart, and all Fleur has it in her to do is hope for a better tomorrow.
Relationships: Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Comments: 9
Kudos: 76
Collections: Cat’s Holiday Exchange 2019





	Fine, You and Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [infiniteworld8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteworld8/gifts).



> Happy holidays, ED! I haven't ever written Bill or Fleur, before, but I've always had a soft spot for the Weasley family; it was fun! I hope you like it! -sincerely, your secret santa
> 
> Special thanks to Akarri and YAJJ who helped beta and prodded me along to finish <3

"We won't know until the next full moon," Remus was the one to say. "You can never know, until then."

The Weasleys all looked particularly distraught, at that. Even the twins, side-by-side, silent, and stone-faced; Molly, face buried into her hands for a choked sob that was just about the only noise she'd made for the entire night.

Fleur lifted her chin, eyes stubbornly dry, and continued stroking the charmed, healing ointment along the gash down her fiancé's cheek.

* * *

"He doesn't wake," she said, the next morning. Three days, since this new hushed silence had suffocated over Hogwarts, as if the whole castle was muffled in freshly fallen snow. Since... "Is... this is normal?"

It was Remus, again, who gave her the answer. "Yes." He averted his eyes, glancing quietly towards where Molly, too, was asleep, on one of the nearby, unoccupied beds. "It means the infection was transmitted. He's trying to fight it off, and there's nothing for it but letting him try. He'll be ill for a while, and worn out for even longer." He handed her another compress, already charmed cold, but Fleur tapped her wand against it to charm it colder for herself. "There's really nothing you can do for him but try and keep him cool. Listen to him, when he wakes up. Try to make him comfortable. He..."

His brow furrowed, that same shadowed, forlorn gaze lingering on Bill, voice trailed off to nothing. He looked as if he still had more that he wanted to say, but after a moment, simply shook his head, mouth shutting to a thin line.

Like most everyone else, the wound seemed to make him so uncomfortable he could hardly bear to look at it.

Fleur, in turn, wouldn't look away from it.

It was a horrible, twisted, bloody claw of a bite mark, all the way down the side of his face. It was explicitly and horrifically dreadful. It would never heal, even in the low chance that the infection did not take hold; the scar on Remus' face was, to her eye, surely just as angry and red as it had been the year that he had been attacked. It was terrible now, and when it scarred over, it would remain terrible for the rest of their lives, no matter how well she tended to it now and how desperately tight she had his hand.

She'd just be beautiful enough for the both of them, then. Fleur pulled straighter in defiance, one hand still protective over his while the other strayed towards his face again, fingers searching into his hair. She would be, she  _ was,  _ beautiful enough for them both, and if anyone ever  _ dared _ to look askance then they would see a mark of Bill's bravery, proof of the battle he had fought so brilliantly, and then they would look at her and forget all about the ugly scar, because she was beautiful enough for only his valor to matter.

"You don't tell Molly this," she said. The lump stayed in her throat and her eyes stayed magnetized downwards, watching Bill's feverish, ill face.  _ He's not waking. He's not waking.  _ "Why do you tell me these things, and not her?'

Remus made a small, tired noise, one hand clasping over the other. "She'd fuss."

_ "I  _ fuss."

"You do, but you'll listen to him. Molly, bless her... it'll be about her. She won't mean it that way, but the more involved she is, the more Bill will try to push away what he's going through. To spare her being upset." There was a breath of a pause, Remus' tired eyes crinkling just faintly in the edge of an exhausted, worn-down smile. "He won't be as bull-headed with you, I think."

Fleur lifted her chin again, something hard stinging in her throat. She stared down at Bill, stroking an errant curl over and over, and she would  _ not  _ cry.

"No," she said back, only letting the words come when she could force her voice steady through him. "No, he will not."

She would not let him do such a foolish, silly thing.  _ Foolish, silly boy;  _ she would  _ not.  _ They were in this war together, no matter how it would end, and together meant  _ together. _

She would take care of him through this, and they would make it through to see the other side. It would not be allowed any other way.

* * *

It took until the fourth morning for Bill to wake up, and until the fourth evening for Fleur to be alone with him.

Molly and Arthur were there with her, at first. Molly, Arthur, Remus, Ginny. Remus and Ginny, sitting warily back on another unoccupied bed, saying nothing; Molly weeping over his hand while Arthur sat on his other side with a quivering mouth, explaining to Bill in low, thick words all that had happened. Dumbledore, dead. Severus Snape, responsible. The Ministry, already in shambles. His siblings, all whole and healthy. Harry, dear, wonderful Harry, the same.

The lingering risk of infection, festering in the gash on his face and the burning heat in his soaked hair.

Fleur tossed her hair at that, planted firmly up at the head of the bed, and kept quiet.

If she spoke up now, if she lent her own words to Arthur softly explaining, "We've got to wait for the full moon, to know, to be sure," and Molly sobbing, "My baby, my  _ poor baby,"  _ then she would cry. If she tried to do this now then she would cry, and that simply could not happen.

"Don't worry about me, Mum," Bill sighed, somehow offering up a tired twitch of a smile, the edges brittle and his eyes distant. "I'm okay. Promise."

That nearly set Molly off into tears all over again, sniffling, breaths shaking as she rubbed at red, streaming eyes. Bill squeezed her hand tiredly through it all, his eyes a worn glaze of fever, his fingers and tense in a wordless expression of pain, and-

Remus had been  _ right,  _ she realized, a flare of anger blossoming in her chest to rise up all the way and curl her tongue. Molly was making it worse; they  _ all  _ were making it  _ worse _ . Every single one of them needed to either control themselves or get out, and if they did not do it on their own soon then she would speak up and  _ make  _ them.

Half the family already didn't like her. If cementing that dislike in stone was what it took to get that look off Bill's face right now, then so be it.

It was Remus who saved the day, just a half-second before Fleur's tolerance would've snapped.

"Madam Pomfrey said we should clear out for a bit," he spoke up, venturing just close enough to rest a hand on Molly's shoulder. "Come on, Molly, he'll be okay for a few, won't he? I'm sure Harry could use some company right about now..."

Fleur reluctantly trailed them back outside, managing a shared, unhappy look back to Bill and little else. It took her only a few minutes to slip away from the Weasleys, turning back around the corner while Remus distracted them with something or other, but by the time she made it back to the hospital wing, Bill was already asleep again.

She took her place by his side with little more than a hard swallow at the lump in her throat.

The fever was worse. The fatigue, shadowed in the smudges under his eyes and the hollow of his sliced cheek, was worse than that. He breathed as if he'd just run miles, was still running, and when she touched a hand around his wrist, his heart was faster than it had ever been before.

She squeezed his hot hand against her cheek, drawn close enough that every wheeze of breath ghosted over her sleeve, and did not let go.

He did wake up again, later that day. When the sun was just starting to set outside, and the castle was all still hushed in mourning, the Weasleys distracted away so it was just them, just the two of them. It was just them, and she squeezed his hand harder and two  _ exhausted  _ brown eyes met hers, and it felt like her insides had melted to warm slush and every horror of the past four days burned in her throat as something close to tears.

"Fleur," he croaked, and it was as guttural and ragged as the cold cut of the stones under her feet. "...you're-"

"We'll be okay," she promised, and her voice came out rough, too. She sniffed and cleared her throat and smiled with everything she had, both her hands squeezing now around one of his.  _ "Je t'aime.  _ We'll be okay. We'll be okay."

Bill blinked fuzzily to her, an edge of pain in the corner of his eye that she'd never seen in him before. When he smiled back, it was a mere lazy twitch of a grin, one that hid something fragile underneath, but it was enough to solidify everything she'd already known.

_ We're okay. _

_ We'll be okay. _

* * *

They had the funeral, on the fifth day.

The Weasleys went, gathered up together as a collective; red hair spilled over black robes and shawls, particularly quiet; somewhere in the throng was Harry, utterly stone-faced and silent. Oh, dear Harry, that poor boy. That poor  _ boy. _

_ This is only the beginning,  _ his eyes had said.

Fleur had not known Albus Dumbledore. Not as anything more than an eccentric, renowned old wizard that Madame Maxime had spoken of with fondness and scorn in the same breath.

She stayed with Bill.

"It's a funeral," she said. "There's sure to be many more. You can be permitted to miss just this one."

Bill grinned shallowly, a crooked half-expression at best, cheek lacerated and a red curl limp with sweat and pallor paler than the white all around them, and kept quiet.

Someone new entered the hospital wing, then. A stranger a first, unfamiliar by a passing glance, but with red hair that was as good as signing his name. Fleur faced him fully from the shadow of the window, something sullen and protective quivering in her throat, but it was muffled by nothing more than the sudden bright of Bill's eyes.

"Charlie?"

"Bill," Charlie said, and with that, Fleur had at last met the entirety of the Weasley family.

"You're missing the funeral, you know?"

"Yeah, well." He shrugged with an air that reminded her of the twins, though the grin was smaller and half-hearted at best. "There'll be more." He lingered, he stared; he stood there and he stared at the crusted blood and bandage and grey sheen of spreading infection, and Bill stared back, and for a moment the same silence that had dominated the whole of the school spread between them as well.

Then, Charlie broke out into a wide, toothy grin. "Next to the dragons, you’re really not anything more than a cuddly puppy."

Oh, she liked this one.

"I'm not a werewolf  _ yet _ , you twat," Bill croaked back, his grin just as wide, and if his voice cracked then it cracked, and that was fine, because the next moment Charlie had joined his brother on the edge of the bed and slung an arm around his shoulders, and for the first time everything was wrong but that was okay.

They would get through this.

The two brothers were quiet, at first. Quiet and still, Bill's head sagging and Charlie's grin fading, fingers cupped and stroking the hair at the back of his neck. For a moment, Fleur could see them as just two little boys, a gesture of two children snuck under the bed covers at night; for an even shorter moment, she remembered herself and Gabrielle. Tucking her little sister to her side in the coldest bits of the night, and loving her so much she'd spell the very stars in the sky brighter, if that was what it took to get her to smile.

Yes, she definitely liked this one.

Bill muttered something, too low for Fleur to hear. Whatever it was made Charlie grunt under his breath, nudging at his ribs with an unhappy sigh. "Bill..."

"I do. Madam Pomfrey's already said, there's nothing more she can do for me here. There's always Remus, if we have questions."

"You look worse than Percy."

"Oi!"

Fleur cleared her throat then, announcing herself with a straight back and that hollow lump in the back of her throat that never quite seemed to go away. It was only Charlie that looked at her, Bill's dark eyes quietly shifted away and fingers kneading at the corner of the blanket. "He wants to go home," Charlie said, hand curling over the shoulder again. Then his eyes cleared, and he suddenly lifted his head as if a heavy fog had just been dispelled. "Fleur? The fiancée?"

The fiancée. The snooty French girl. The oh,  _ that  _ one.  _ Phlegm. _

"Yes," she said back, and held her head high.

"Charlie," Charlie said, and held his hand out for her to shake. "Bill's got a picture of you in every letter."

Fleur stared back at Bill, who didn't even attempt to look shame-faced at all. He just offered up another grin, that same new, slightly crooked grin, one that was tired at the edges but genuine all the way through, a grin that looked just like his younger brother's now. Tired. They were all so tired.

For the first time, she wondered just how quickly Charlie had had to move, to get all the way to Scotland from Romania, in the past five days.

Fleur shook Charlie's offered hand, and chose to focus on anything else but that.

"Home," she offered instead, sweeping her gaze over Bill again. Charlie was correct: he did not look well. Bill was also correct: there was nothing the school's mediwitch could do for him now, nothing more that Fleur could not do herself. Remus himself had suggested it the evening before, only to be cut off by Molly fussing;  _ absolutely not, look at him, he needs taking care of, my poor baby, absolutely, absolutely not.  _ Fleur had said nothing back, because last night, it had been Remus' suggestion, not Bill's explicitly stated wish.

Last night, he hadn't even been sitting up.

Now, his legs dangled over the edge of the bed, and his eyes were overbright with fever but his back steady against his brother's hand, and he looked up at her silently, just that easy grin of his plastered in place against fatigue and misery, and her mind was made up.

"We'll go home," she said.

* * *

Home, somehow, became Shell Cottage, and not the Burrow.

Because Bill had asked, and the instant it had been proposed Fleur had suddenly wanted nothing less and nothing more, and Charlie had walked with them to the fireplace and it was fine. She wasn't sure, why he'd asked to come here, but got her first inkling at the look on his face when she helped support him out of the fireplace into their home, and understood it a little bit herself when she breathed in and for the first time in days tasted something other than blood and heartbreak.

The rest of the Weasleys did come calling, at some point. Flurrying through the fireplace themselves, a fussing Molly and flustered Arthur, the twins coming along with with an air of trying to defuse the situation, and Charlie along with them. And it was intolerable, just like it had been in the hospital wing- too many people, too many questions, too many hands, but Bill weathered it with nothing but a tired grin.

It wasn't okay.

It was not remotely okay.

His pajamas were buttoned to his throat, a shirt that wasn't his still, because he hadn't had the time or the strength to change before the cottage had been invaded by well-meaning future in-laws. He looked at home, there, long-limbed and limp in their most comfortable chair, waving off worries with a vague hand, but now, out of the hospital wing-

He looked tired, now.

Less sick than before. Perhaps it was the tea. She wasn't good at making tea. As Molly had told her many times, she wasn't good at making tea, at cleaning, at keeping house. But it was hot, at least, the mug warming and clutched in his hand. Perhaps it was the sleep the night before, or seeing his little brother, or just the relief to be home no matter how hard it had been just to limp against her shoulder to the fireplace.

But he looked infinitely tired.

And for the first time, Fleur curled her fingers at the tip of her wand, and wished she could do  _ more. _

She'd curse Fenrir Greyback apart limb from limb, if she ever got face to face with the werewolf again.

"We'll be having none of that, now," Molly was saying, straightening some blanket or another around Bill's shoulders, a blanket Fleur hadn't even known they had. "At home is where you should be- especially in times like these-"

"I  _ am  _ home, Mum," Bill sighed, hand curled against the curve and splay of the scar. He smiled once, a little fond but mostly just exhausted.

"-Remus can be there, too, and we'll be able to look after you, you'll see... Ron and Ginny will be back soon, too, and poor Harry, he needs to be somewhere safe instead of with those rotten Muggles..."

"Molly," Arthur admonished, but it was half-hearted at best, and the matriarch shook her head with fire in her eyes.

"Those Muggles are terrible people and you know it. You've seen how they treat him, and Harry needs people who care about him now, not those- dreadful, spiteful- you've seen them, you know how they are, we all do-"

And Fleur, again, was the one left out. Fleur had never seen Harry's Muggle family, had not even known he had Muggle family, that apparently everyone in the room disliked because even the twins were scowling, now. Fleur didn't know what Harry had to do with this at all, as a matter of fact; Dumbledore's death had cast everything into disarray, and Bill's attack had become her only piece of driftwood in the ensuing hurricane.

What she knew was that Bill looked like he was about to collapse, sweat sticky and shiny on his forehead and a telltale tremor in his hand, crumpled with such pain against the scar, and that was  _ enough. _

"-and really, there's no need for this, none at all, just come back with us, dear-"

" _ Enough!" _

Molly flinched. Arthur flinched with it.

And Fleur was  _ done. _

"You," she demanded, and was through the throng in a swirl of skirts, door charmed outwards with a violent slam that caught in her throat. "You are making zis worse! 'e is tired, and 'urt, and you will stop it now!"

There was flustering and upset, Molly coloring almost as red as her hair, stuttering once, twice; the twins interceding, defusing, nodding to her without words, Arthur just as flustered as his wife but giving Bill a brief hug all the while. Fleur didn't care what they said, and didn't care what they did. Bill had been sick for five days, and Remus had been exactly, entirely  _ right: _

Them being here was making it worse for him.

Therefore, they had to go.

Fleur stayed outside in the cold cut of the wind, arms curled around herself as she squinted into the fading dusk, the gunshot crack of apparation, one by one, echoing against the gulf. She stared into that low light on a vigil without rhyme or reason, nothing beyond the distant waves and her own blood, pounding in her ears.

She wanted to tear the tranquility to pieces. The forced falsehood of it; that anything so peaceful would  _ dare _ to exist in the wake of everything that had happened. She wanted it  _ gone. _

Fleur squeezed her eyes shut, and counted to ten.

Then, she turned around and strode back into the cottage.

"I will apologize to 'er later. I-" She stopped, cleared her throat, and tried again. "I will, but- if they insist on this, this-"

Fleur stopped.

Bill was silent, still. Hadn't said a word in protest, while she'd been shepherding his family out, and wasn't saying a word now. Still slumped in his seat, heavy head held up just with one trembling hand, his eyes squeezed shut and fingers again caught trailing against the roughness of his scar.

She could hear the panted anguish of his breaths from all the way across the room.

Her throat tightened.

Later, then.

_ Everything,  _ now, would be seen to later.

Fleur blinked the burning in her eyes back. The wet lump in the back of her throat, the stinging grief in her nostrils, the pressure that grew inside her head.

"We will be fine," she said. Crossing the room in a heartbeat, she fell into place beside him, one arm pressing around the heat of his shoulders and the other curling in his hair. "You and me, Bill. You, and me, and your family. You brave, wonderful, silly man; you'll see." No force at all, no pressure, not with the wounds still so recent and raw, but Bill just folded forwards to press his unblemished cheek against her stomach, hid his mouth in her shirt, and she curled her hand in his hair tighter and did not let go. "We will be  _ fine." _

They stood there together until the grey dusk turned into darkness, and the heat of the fever had cooled just enough for her to feel it against his cheek.

* * *

_ We'll meet up with you next week, to give you a few pointers. In the meanwhile, if he can keep it down, Honeydukes' chocolate will really help :) _

_ Love, _

_ Remus, Tonks _

Fleur sent their owl back with a scrawled thank you, Bill curled and shivering at her back, his breaths unsteady even in a restless sleep.

Then, she sent off their own owl to Fred and George, demanding every scrap of chocolate that they had in the shop.

* * *

There was fever, and with a fever came chills. There was nausea, and with nausea came occasional bouts of sickness; some days, unable to even keep down thin broth or weak tea. Insomnia, which Madam Pomfrey had told them to expect, insomnia that alternated with crushing fatigue, which Remus assured them both was nothing to be afraid of. Well wishes, mostly from his family; Charlie stayed, to everyone's surprise, and the twins sent along what about amounted to a metric ton of chocolate, and a set of plastic dog ears.

(They'd made Bill smile. Fleur absolutely, positively  _ hated it,  _ but Bill took one look and laughed for the first time in days, laughed even if it made him clutch his chest and fight for breath, and that was enough to make it worth it. )

There was pain.

Muscle cramps. An ache in his stomach. A migraine that took all but permanent residence for a day and a half and then lingered still beyond that, evident in the exhausted glaze of his eyes. A bone-deep, whole-body soreness that he described as the flu, but there was no flu, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Bill was fighting the infection with everything that he had, but all she could think was, he was losing.

The pain wasn't just in his face. The fever wasn't going down. The exhaustion wasn't going away.

He wasn't-

He wasn't getting  _ better. _

* * *

As promised, Remus and Tonks stopped by, just four days after they'd left Hogwarts. It felt too soon, but in a way, the date didn't even matter.

The full moon was in three more days.

Fleur was barely able to keep herself together enough to let them in at all, half her focus on trying to charm the kettle to boil in the kitchen while the other was on Bill, miserable and in pain and too exhausted not to show it. Then the couple came knocking, and the tea was about to boil over and no matter what she did it wasn't fast enough.

Tonks took one look at her, her hair short and dark and braided, today, and said, "No. No, no. You sit down right now, Fleur, I can handle this," and suddenly she just about burst into tears.

Remus was...

Oh.

Remus...

He looked dreadful.

Oh.

Not that Fleur had never seen him like this, before. Not often, no, but at Order meeting sometimes, in conjunction with the full moon; it was a common enough sight. The hunched shoulders, shadowed eyes, how each step was achingly careful, complexion faded to almost grey, exhausted  _ misery. _

It wasn't ever something she'd really taken note of before. Not beyond feeling sorry for him in passing. Remus took it all in stride, never once offering a single complaint within her ears, and one way or another Tonks had been just as silent. 

But now she looked at him, and for the very first time realized what was going to be in store for Bill. For  _ them. _

Damn Fenrir Greyback.

_ Damn him! _

"You're almost to the end. No matter what, at least after the full moon, the waiting will be over. You'll see." Tonks settled the mug before her, steam curling upwards in a lazy, fragrant swirls, a comforting smell that had so far managed nothing at all but managing to turn Bill's stomach. "Worse comes to worse, even then, Fleur, it'll be  _ okay. _ Look at Remus!"

She had. She  _ had  _ looked at Remus.

That was why she was so  _ scared. _

"You did the right thing coming out here, you know." The hand passing by squeezed at her shoulder before it was gone again, the witch seemingly unable to keep still; Fleur, now that she was sitting down, suddenly found herself too absolutely exhausted to do anything but. "If he really is a-... well." She sniffed and patted Fleur's shoulder again, still fluttering about the kitchen, all in all only making it even more of a mess. "You'll both probably feel safer out here, where it's just the two of you. You'll want a bit of time to get used to it, before you'll want to be staying anywhere else when the full moon comes."

When the full moon came.

When.

It wasn't even a question anymore. Not if. Just the eventuality,  _ when. _

They both knew it. The chances of the infection taking hold, of Bill failing to fight it off after being mauled so viciously by that  _ beast.  _ Not a question at all, barely anything beyond a foregone conclusion.

Werewolf.

Werewolf.

"There's- I'm not sure how much time you've had to look into it, with Bill being so ill- no, give me that," Tonks chided, waving her hand down and snatching the flannel for herself. "At least while we're here, let yourselves take it easy, Fleur. If you've looked into it, Wolfsbane Potion?"

She had not looked into it. She had not yet had the chance to go digging up obscure texts on advanced Potionmaking. She had not yet had the chance to write home and ask for one to be sent to her, because she didn't dare trust herself to understand something so advanced, so  _ important,  _ in her second language. She certainly hadn't done any of this yet when her entire focus had been on just trying to help Bill keep dinner down or sleep through the pain.

Something of her answer must've shown on her face, because Tonks was nodding again before she'd found the words, offering her another small smile with a twitch of her nose. "I looked into it a little before. It's, um. It's... expensive."

Fleur sniffed, pressing the heel of her hand to her eyes. As if. As  _ if.  _ "Then I will make it myself. I will look into it and I will make it myself, if I have to, I will learn how-"

"We can't even afford the ingredients, Fleur."

Her mouth snapped shut.

For a few moments, the both of them were silent. All Fleur could listen to was the unsteady creak of the ceiling over their head; Remus pacing, by the sound of it. Bill's stomach had been unsettled all morning, and he had yet to get out of bed.

No.  _ No.  _ This was still fine- all fine. Everything was fine. This meant nothing- it was nothing at all, nothing but a silly potion. A silly, overpriced potion for an eventuality that everyone else had resigned themselves too but Fleur had not, would  _ not,  _ not yet.  _ No.  _ This was still fine. Everything was fine.

"...considered transfiguration, instead?"

"I-" She blinked hard, vigorously trying to shake off the dusty cobwebs collecting inside her aching head, the knot tying in the pit of her stomach. What now. What could it possibly be  _ now?  _ "Pardon?"

Tonks gave another brisk nod, her hands still fidgeting. Before Fleur's eyes, her hair started to grow out again, curling at the ends, the color washed out and faded, and she remembered hearing something about that the year before; that stress and sadness interfered in her ability to regulate her appearance.

For a moment, Fleur wondered just what  _ she  _ might look like, nowadays, if she had Tonks' abilities.

It wasn't a pleasant thought.

"Transfiguration," Tonks repeated, and it took a real effort to make herself focus and listen. "Werewolves are only a danger to  _ humans,  _ you know. They're really quite peaceful, around anything else." She paused again. Another dark centimeter, curling at the ends of her hair. "I can't do it. I tried, but- full animal transformation is about the only thing I  _ can't  _ do to myself. I never had to learn how any of it worked before, and when Remus and I looked at it together it was more complicated than I could even understand, never mind try myself, but- but, you..."

"I,  _ what." _ She pressed the heel of her hand to her eyes again, willing back it all. Grief, a headache, tears, fatigue; everything. What more were they meant to know, now? How much more of this was she supposed to take?

"You're a good witch, aren't you? You could do it." Her nose twitched. "You might be able to become an animagus."

As tired as she was, it took a moment for the words to really filter through. Animagus. Werewolf. Not human.

Not human.

Fleur shook her head once, blinking downwards through the fall of her hair. All she knew, right now, was that it was too much, too fast. Could she learn to become an animagus? Yes. Yes, she could. She was confident in herself, by at least that much. She was skilled at charms, but could learn transfiguration if she had to, and if it would help Bill, she could learn it. In this same horrible new world of hypotheticals, if Bill was infected, if they couldn't afford the potion, if Wizarding Britain was not now at  _ war,  _ if she and Bill were not fighting together in this war, if Fleur were to sequester herself away in an ivory tower's library and relegate herself into a scholar while her fiancé suffered and her new home burned around her.

If, if,  _ if. _

Some day, maybe.

She said nothing as she got to her feet, averting her eyes and her hands just for the illusion of having something to do. She  _ was _ grateful to Tonks, Tonks and Remus, but gratitude was just a little too much to ask for in the hell this week had been.

Animagus. Werewolf. Not human.

_...not... _

For the first time, an idea started to take form.

* * *

"Romania," Bill said abruptly.

Fleur raised an eyebrow, gaze landing on him again through her hair. "What about Romania? You want to see Charlie, again?" She paused for a moment, wracking her brain, trying to remember through the aching haze of lack of sleep and fatigue. "He said he'd stay for a little while, I think..."

But Bill shook his head with a squeeze to her free hand. "No. I mean- we could go to Romania. If you wanted."

Her attention remained fractured and fragile, a little on Bill, a little on the temperature of the water, charmed warm but not warm enough yet; this new question of  _ Romania,  _ so unexpected and odd, she didn't even know what to do with. "We've only just gotten home," she pointed out. "And you're wanting to go on vacation already? Here, give me your hand."

There was something about Bill's expression, there, that she did not like. Hard to read, against the terrible scar, even with it turned away from her, but a dullness in his eyes that was not just from a fading fever.

He didn't answer at first, though, and Fleur again allowed her focus on the conversation to lapse, centering on just the heavy weight of his hand in hers, the warmth of his dry skin, the lank knots of his hair, his face having hurt too badly to use a comb. Perhaps later, she hoped. His fever had broken, and after weeks of it, of tossing and turning in bed and sweating out of his clothes, worn thinner and more haggard and exhausted and hurt, he had asked for the chance to be clean, to try and wash off all the suffering and sweat that had accumulated since being bitten, something beyond just Fleur's attempt at a cleaning spell while in bed.

And, well, they've both been through worse, than her helping him to stagger for and slide into water that was as warm as she dared.

They have both done so much worse, but somehow, this was the worst she had ever felt.

Bill waited until the water had settled, to continue on again. "I don't mean as a vacation." He skittered a finger across the surface, watching it ripple instead of her, mouth flat in such a way that it made the wound seem to flex and shift, all on its own. "Just... Britain is about to get dangerous, I think. Really dangerous. Charlie would let us stay with him, if we had to, and- it'd be safe, at least. If." He hesitated, clearly unsure of what to say; when the smile finally came, the only word for it was forced. "Seriously, he and his friends deal with things more dangerous than a werewolf every day."

Her eyes, once again, narrowed.

Silence settled between them again. She let a hand onto his shoulder, feeling the lost weight, focusing on the tired struggle for each breath. It felt as if he was trying to relax in the hot water but was so sore and tired that it was a process that could only happen by fractional degrees at a time.

All problems for her to fix. All difficulties for her to erase, struggles that it was to be her duty to force away.

His breaths were tense, still. Unmeasured and rough, in and out, and evident in the strain right there on his face.

She waited, then, for that to start to ease, before replying back.

"I do not want to go to Romania."

He raised an eyebrow, but it was cursory at best, flagging underneath exhaustion. With a quiet  _ hmm  _ under his breath, he tilted his head back, eyes slipped shut and mouth still a quivering line, the pain evident but the hot water at long last a balm.

She wasn't yet good at this.

That was going to change.

"France, then," he said, switching course. Heaving a deep sigh, he shifted, trying to squirm into a more comfortable position; Fleur helped, or tried, one hand supporting a shuddering back, but he wasn't paying attention as he slid deeper into the water and his eyes momentarily squeezed shut. "I don't... know your family well, but- no time like the present? I don't know Wizarding France's attitudes towards. Towards werewolves, you know, if I am one," he said, all in a rush, "but I would love getting to know my future sister-in-law, if they're willing. I'm sure we could do it safely."

Where was all this coming from? And  _ why?  _ For weeks, now, the future had been left behind a shut and locked door, undiscussed and as far as she was concerned, they didn't have to. Infected or not, the country at war or not, her focus right now was limited to Bill's health and their safety.

But their safety  _ here.  _ Shell Cottage, or the Burrow, or- anywhere at all that was  _ here.  _ Where she had spent years making her home and had made her mind up to be ready to stay. As much as she loved Gabrielle and France,  _ this  _ was her home, now.

She'd known well before she'd ever decided that that it was going to be  _ dangerous _ .

She'd decided the night her school years had ended with Cedric Diggory's sacrifice that the very last thing she cared about was that they were  _ safe. _

She was in this, in sickness and in health, to whatever the end was going to be. Even if sickness meant the new scar hewn right into Bill's wonderful face, and even if health meant hiding here together as the country burned in a war around them.

Once again, Fleur elected to not respond, for a few minutes. There was something nice about this, the quiet, the warmth, Bill relaxing just a hint but for the first time in  _ weeks.  _ She was learning to get better at doing this all magically, but Bill didn't want that tonight, and the look on his face right now was more than enough for her to agree.

It wasn't until he had fully relaxed at last, head lolling and slack against her hand, one wet, red curl dripping in her thumb, that she made her move.

"I do not want to go to Romania, and I do not want to go to France."

He frowned faintly again, just a little quirk as his eyes flickered open, half-mast and tired. "Fleur," he started, with a long-suffering air, and she held one wet finger up to stop him.

"I know it is about to get dangerous, here. Dangerous no matter what, but especially so, if you're infected after all. I know you can make no guarantees to keep me safe, or how any of this is going to end." She tried to meet his eyes, and when he gaze squirmed away, forced it back to her with a careful pull on his hair. "I know you don't want to run away. Of course you don't; neither do I! Your whole family's been in this from the beginning, haven't they? I should be insulted you'd think I want anything less!"

He huffed something under his breath, and she continued stroking his shoulder, momentarily struck by just how true those words really were. The Weasley family was so big it had taken her a month to stop having one or two names slip her mind, and yet every single one of them was, one way or another, fighting in this war. Even those still underage had been there fighting the very night Dumbledore had died.

Oh, she'd known what she was marrying into for a very long time- had always known, perhaps, all the way from the very beginning. But it hadn't hit her until now, what that really meant.

Of  _ course  _ they were going to stay and fight.

"I've told you already, haven't I? We will be fine. We'll be  _ fine." _ She sat back herself, swiveling around so they could be eye to eye. He looked horrible. Sick in every way, miserable and filthy, and she had never not cared so much. "You never promised me safety, Bill, and I  _ never _ asked for it. You just promised me you."

And Bill looked at her, scars and all, and for the first time that week, she saw the same warm glint in his eyes from when Fred and George had sent him a set of dog ears.

"Besides!" She cupped the back of his neck and his warm, slick face came to burrow against her shoulder, one cheek pressed to dampen her shirt, and she stroked his other temple, free and far away from crusted sores and inflamed skin. "Someone still needs to be here to look after dear 'arry, don't they? And we already know that he adopts werewolves as uncles."

Bill half-grinned, sloped and tired and turning relaxed and soft as after a good cup of tea, and that was enough.

* * *

_ Fleur, _

_ Tonks spoke with me about what you are planning to try. _

_ It is up for debate among magizoologists how exactly non-human one would have to be, to not trigger a werewolf's instinct. As I'm sure you can imagine, there aren't many people willing to volunteer as test subjects. Concerning veela specifically, I am not aware of any research on the subject that suggests an answer, one way or the other. _

_ I can not caution you enough to think very carefully about what you are wanting to try. Even if the hypothesis is sound, you are only a quarter veela, and have never interacted with a werewolf before. If you absolutely must try, then you should talk with Bill about it first, and only proceed as safely as can be reasonably arranged. You will not be able to talk him down, if this goes badly. _

_ This needs to be about Bill, not you. To you, I'm sure the risk is acceptable. But don't think about this in terms of yourself, and how much hurt you'll accept if there's the chance it might help him: think about what it will do to HIM, if he hurts you because you did this without consulting him. _

_ Best wishes, _

_ Remus Lupin _

* * *

The full moon came, and that was it. It was over.

He changed.

There was no delay. There was no glorious moment choked with euphoria where it was as if time had frozen, the moon huge in the sky but Bill still human and whole and scarred and beautiful and perfect. There was not even a heartbeat where she could grasp at hope and believe they'd gotten through it after all.

The moon cut through the shroud of overcast clouds, the first gleam of starlight and silver against the gulf and sands. And Bill- oh,  _ no,  _ no, no,  _ no,  _ he made the most horrible, awful sounds, the bloodcurdling split of bone, a screech and splitting and  _ crack  _ that was so loud she felt it in her stomach. He was on his knees and then his hands and knees and then his stomach, and he writhed as in a seizure, eyes bulging and veins blue and ridged, he  _ screamed, _ and she watched him change. She watched his spine arc like a puppet on strings, bones piercing flesh, a stark white that curved and lengthened, and shoulders bowed violently, first one, then the other, each limb pulled beyond what was humanly possible and contorted so grotesquely-

He changed. He  _ changed.  _ All fours, shaggy red hair foresting over the curve of his spine, jaw snapped shut with teeth that glinted even from this distance. He grew and grew, a wolf bigger than she'd ever seen before in her life, the scar, gone, his warm, familiar,  _ human  _ face, destroyed. A wolf. A full-grown, honest-to-god, wolf. With ginger fur and a swishing tail and a belly-deep growl, lower pitched than a drum, a snarl through clenched teeth as he sniffed the air.

Fleur stared.

The wolf. He- Bill- no.  _ No.  _ The wolf.  _ The wolf  _ slunk forwards, stretching as if he was still coming into himself, limbs long and joints still loose, like a body that was being animated to life by a spell. But it was all wrong, pained and alien, inhuman- but of course it was inhuman, he  _ wasn't human- _

He threw his head back, and howled.

A werewolf, through and through.

The howl came long and loud, a keening, predator's cry that made her blood run cold. It reminded her of grindylows, those horrid British little demons, and the foreboding chill of it clung to her as close as a second skin.

She shivered.

She shivered, and then, suddenly, she couldn't stop. She folded her arms tighter, nails digging hard into her arms as she curled around herself, cod and miserable and the warmth of her wand barely a forgotten spark, and she just couldn't stop. This was it. She'd known it was coming, she'd prepared for it, she'd pushed away the slim hope for a miracle because she wasn't a child anymore; she did not believe in miracles. She'd held everything together this far because Bill was sick and suffering- he'd  _ needed  _ her to.

But now she couldn't hold herself together for him, because he suddenly wasn't there to need it.

A- a  _ wolf.  _ That wolf. Long-haired and shaggy and dangerous, head low to the ground as sniffed, like a bloodhound turned after prey. That wolf was him. That was Bill.

That was  _ him. _

For the first time since the attack, he wasn't there, and the world lurched from under her feet and Fleur was left in freefall, with nothing at all to grab onto.

"You have what you need, now; isn't that right? So, your business is concluded here, then. I'd say that it's high time that you left."

A hot kernel of shame flooded her cheeks, shame and something else, something smaller and hurt. Her eyes flooded but nothing came out of her mouth, the words blocked behind a lump that made each breath sting. And she turned to Molly, crying now, because what did it matter, what did she care, how  _ dare she- _

Molly was by her side, flushed and wet-eyed and angry. But, though it took her a moment to understand, it was not at her.

"Ma'am," the Ministry wizard started, shoulders back and mouth set in a long-suffering sigh. "We're meant to-"

"You've seen that he's a werewolf. What more do you vultures want?!" She stepped forward so fiercely even the Ministry wizard flinched back, but instead of a curse or a slap Molly simply planted herself between Bill and the rest of the world, one hand in the small of her back in a gesture of silent support. "That  _ will be all,  _ I think."

"Mrs. Weasley-"

"You have overstayed your welcome here. This is my son and daughter-in-law's  _ home,  _ not- there is no standing invitation for you to invade as voyeurs!" Her voice cracked, but the hand on Fleur's back somehow stayed steady, her eyes still wet and flashing in the low light. "It is time for you to leave."

The Ministry wizard, the stuffy, sallow older man with thinning hair and an impatience about his eyes, checked his watch once. His gaze jerked from between the two of them back towards the ginger werewolf; back towards where Fleur still couldn't make herself look again. Something shifted in his expression, she didn't quite have a name for it, but it was enough for Fleur.

She cleared her throat, swallowing hard and breathing in deeply and held her head high over the growing pain in her chest. She nodded once to Molly in silent gratitude, and then, without another word, faced the Ministry wizard, and began to lead the way.

Daughter-in-law.

Fleur carefully walked on, leading the wizard towards where the rest of his team was waiting, just past the borders of the anti-apparition jinx. An anti-apparition jinx that wouldn't be necessary in France, and wouldn't be necessary in Romania, but this was the life she had chosen, and she had accepted it.

"We have everything handled from here," she said coldly. It was easier, now, steadier now that she'd gotten just a bit of distance- perhaps that had been Molly's wish. "Your presence is no longer required."  _ If it ever was. _

And Fleur was sure that it wasn't proper. She was sure the wizards were meant to stay here all the way until morning, when the sun had come up and Bill was himself again. But they glanced at each other once in the faded light, worn and weary and tired, with the whole of the country in turmoil and worse around them, clearly, there were clearly matters more pressing than a newly turned werewolf, looked after and lonely in secluded Cornwall.

They left. One after another after another.

They left, until there was just one remaining, his arms folded tightly and his dark eyes turned away, her age, perhaps, younger than Bill, certainly, and yet with a weight about him that bowed his shoulders and worn his frown into something a decade older. This one, she noted, hadn't even bothered to come with the others to the cottage, to Bill, and irritation flared.

"Well? Is there something more you have to say? Because if not-"

"There's a lot of paperwork going through this department, these days," he said abruptly. Still not quite looking at her, his gaze shifted to the side and far away. "There's a high chance his registration papers might be... misplaced. Just a misfiling, of sorts. Happens all the time."

Having never actually met the sibling herself, it took Fleur an embarrassingly long time for the incomprehensible statement to click.

Percy.

This was Percy Weasley.

Fleur stared at him. He continued to not stare back, clearly increasingly uncomfortable by the second; still unable to look at her, still unable to so much as turn around and look back to the rest of his family. She should... she should've been grateful for it. Of course. A favor, that was what this was, one they had never asked for, and had had no right to expect. She should be thankful.

She should.

Something hot burned deep in her chest, a match that had been smoldering for weeks and only now dropped to spill and spread in the dry brush below.

"If you want to apologize to your family, then do it."

Percy started, head jerked up at being caught. He gave a stuffy tug at his scarf, somehow having the gall to look almost affronted, but Fleur turned her back and swept back up the path before the first try at a defense even got out of his mouth. "But do not pass it through me, and do not do zis- zis  _ pandering  _ behind their backs, and pretend zat it counts."

He probably had an argument for that, too. Everything she'd heard about Percy Weasley indicated that he had to get the last word in, always, could never let anything lie. No matter what had probably been meant as a nice gesture.

But tonight, in all the things it was about, was not about  _ him,  _ and Fleur did not care to waste one moment more on it.

She headed back up the path in the dark, with her shawl pulled tighter around her, her jaw set and her heart heavy as a stone. Behind her, Percy apparated out himself with another sharp crack, but Fleur still didn't deign to give it so much as a backward glance.

The noise elicited a second canine whine, long, keening, and high. A werewolf reacting to something in animal fright.

A werewolf.  _ Her _ werewolf.  _ Bill. _

"They've left," she told Molly, and her voice came out more brittle than intended, but it was better than thick with tears and that was enough. "They won't be coming back, I think."

No need to mention Percy.

"Thank you, dear. Vultures, all of them- they've never liked Arthur, I'm sure of it..."

Fleur nodded distantly once, her heart still lodged somewhere in her throat. She didn't much care what grudge the Ministry wizards might have had or not had; all that mattered to her was that they were gone. And they were gone, now. They were alone here.

Her, and Molly, and Bill.

Once again, her focus slid past Molly.

They were a careful distance away from the containment charm, set up by the powerful Ministry wizard that she had just sent home. Just far enough, they'd been told, that they wouldn't be seen, that the barrier meant they couldn't be smelled; would not be heard, so long as they kept their voices down. So far, it did seem to be true. The werewolf was paying them no mind, still pressed low to the ground and sniffing, carefully, tail twitching back and forth as a stalk of grass in the wind. The werewolf- Bill? Was it Bill, in there? Was it really him, just swallowed by a beast's instincts, or was it something else entirely? God, she'd never asked Remus. She'd never been able to face it, to force herself to ask him what it was like. She hadn't been able to accept what it meant, to ask that question, and she never had.

Now, those past missed opportunities made her feel so utterly worthless, she almost wanted to cry.

She had no idea what it felt like to be Bill, right now, because she hadn't been able to make herself ask, and now, it was too late.

She stared back at him still, words and hope and despair all caught in her throat into one miserable lump. She stared at him, and she wanted to cry. She thought about  _ daughter-in-law,  _ and the rest of Bill's family not being there at all- Ron, looking after Harry, Percy, sallow-faced and distant, his back to them in the middle of the night.

She thought about Bill, offering to move to France, even though she knew he wanted anything but.

Because it would be easier.

Because it would be  _ safer. _

Fleur had not cared about her own  _ safety  _ for a very, very long time.

"Molly?"

It took a few moments for her to listen, still wiping her eyes, so clearly, utterly devastated. "Yes?" she sniffed, her voice thick, but Fleur was already turning away, her focus towards the faint blue shimmer of the containment barrier, charmed in the dusk light, and the scrape of her sleeves as she rolled them up.

She thought about the wary look in Tonks' eyes, when the witch had first heard her plan. And she thought about Remus, telling her  _ don't do this, it won't end the way that you're hoping it will. _

Mostly, she thought about Bill.

The silly, valorous, newly scarred and wounded Gryffindor who had already promised her everything, and who, in a few month's time, she still had every single last intention of swearing for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.

"I need to try something," she said. "Whatever you do- don't move to try and stop me."

Werewolves only attacked humans. Werewolves only attacked humans.  _ Only humans.  _ That was what everyone had always said, that was what everyone had told her ever since that horrible beast had torn the flesh out of Bill's cheek, that was what Tonks had told her;  _ only humans,  _ they said.

She was not human.

And she was not afraid.

The werewolf tensed, upon her entrance. Every muscle corded tight, every new limb curled in a crouch against the sand. He sniffed, a deep inhale so ravenously  _ loud _ it felt like a lightning crack in the quiet of the night.

And then, growling, he turned to her.

He was huge and dangerous, a hulking predator that would've stood taller than her on his hind legs and could've tackled her to the ground without a second thought. He was  _ frightening,  _ sharp teeth glinting as he inhaled again and crept forward, breathing in the smell of her and- god, that was Bill. That was Bill and he was coming for  _ her,  _ and this was it. She saw it, now, saw every warning Remus had tried to give her: there was  _ nothing  _ of her fiancé in that beast. He didn't recognize her, and if she hadn't already known she wouldn't have recognized him.

If she was wrong about this, and it didn't work, then she wouldn't be able to stop him. Wherever Bill was in there, it wasn't somewhere that she could reach. If this wasn't enough, if her one grandmother veela and her fraction of inhuman blood was not enough-

He stopped, just under a meter away.

"...Bill?"

He sniffed again, a snap of dangerous teeth and a toss of his head, and it took just about everything she had not to flinch.

"Bill," she ventured again. Her voice came out as little more than a hoarse whisper, and there was just nothing more for her to say. She stared down at him, her knees locked and froze, heart thudding in her ears, and he stared right back, and she had never come closer to death than right in that moment.

He wasn't attacking. He wasn't attacking.  _ It was enough.  _ He wasn't-

"...It's me," she whispered, and it was surely all but suicidally foolish. But Bill sniffed the cold air again, and she reached her hand out. She wanted to drop to her knees, to lean closer, but her legs had frozen solid and her heart lunged right into her throat; all there was between them was her outstretched hand.

This was it. There was no further this could go. Either she passed the test, or she wouldn't, and if she wouldn't-

Bill was already too close for her to apparate away.

Either she'd pass the test, or she wouldn't.

Either way, it was too late to back out now.

"It's me," she said again. "Just me. Fleur, Bill. It's Fleur, it's-" She choked on a watery laugh; crying, when had she started crying? "It's me. You  _ know  _ zis,  _ je t'aime, je t'aime _ , it is just me-"

He growled again, a deep, horrible, guttural snarl, loud and sudden, and Fleur's words choked to nothing in her throat.

There was nothing in those cold, glittering eyes that she knew. That was the worst of it; that took this all into more than she could bear. Those eyes- that brilliant cursebreaker who'd been the first person in months to pay her mind, possibly the first person in this whole country after Harry who'd given her a reason to want to stay; someone to fight to protect. The soldier who'd volunteered to fight in this war and inspired her to do the same. This was her fiancé _. _

_ It's me, Bill... _

He sniffed once more. And then, without hesitation-

He licked.

She would've flinched back, if she could've moved at all. The tongue rough and wet, slipped down the back of her hand almost like a dog, something approaching warm or affectionate. He licked again and then again, quietly snuffling as he investigated her hand, so close she could feel the heat of his breath and the new texture of a dog's nose, the ragged pant against her skin.

She could see the scar on his face.

Then, as neatly as a puppet with its strings cut, he curled up at her feet.

There was noise behind her, again. Molly's voice, high-pitched and alarmed and hysterical, and maybe someone else's; Fleur couldn't hear and didn't care. Voices and the whisper of a cold wind and the thudding of her own heart, and it was all too much and none of it mattered.

She hit the sand cross-legged, and he prodded the upper half of his body into her lap like an overeager puppy, licking at her knee instead and crawling against her without delay. They sniffed together, and now Fleur really was just  _ crying,  _ wiping futilely at her face with one hand while the other buried in his newly warm neck, fingers lost in ginger fur as she choked over and over again and couldn't stop it. "Yes," she begged,  _ "yes," _ , and Bill just licked her again, as if he couldn't care less, and she couldn't care  _ more. _

"We're fine," she said, past the tears. She leaned down to him and smiled, stroking his head, pressing her lips to a new ear, a new jaw, a new face. "I told you, Bill, I told you this was how it would be- we're just fine, you and me. We are. We  _ are." _

Bill howled.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is welcome and always appreciated!


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